Mission

Our Mission

APPPAH educates professionals and the public, worldwide, that a baby’s experience of conception, pregnancy, and birth creates lifelong consequences for individuals, families, and society. As a result of scientific discoveries and continually emerging evidence, we know babies are conscious and sentient beings.

We accomplish our mission by

Creating conferences, workshops, and other educational opportunities

Publishing a peer-reviewed Journal, Newsletter, and several Directories

Partnering with local, regional, national, and international groups with similar interests, and

Advocating for a new era of pregnancy and birth honoring the consciousness of babies and parents, and the prevention of prenatal and perinatal trauma.

Our Legacy

In the last 30 years, the APPPAH Community has fundamentally:

Re-defined the nature of the human prenate as an aware, communicative, and vulnerable being;

Re-set the starting time for parenthood from after birth to before conecption; and

Revealed the hidden connections between the quality of conception, pregnancy, and birth, and the quality of individual wellness, public health, and compassionate society.

The Association emanated from the vision of Canadian psychiatrist Thomas R. Verny, MD. DHL, DPsych, FRCPC and was founded in 1983. APPPAH is an international forum for individuals from diverse backgrounds and disciplines interested in psychological and physical dimensions of prenatal and perinatal experience. First registered as a charity in Canada, APPPAH subsequently became a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) educational foundation in the United States. The Association is comprised of a committed and active Board of Directors, members, and volunteers. Support comes from membership dues, grants and fundraising activities, and monetary and in-kind donations

Among those involved in living and spreading APPPAH's message are mothers and fathers, as well as children and adult survivors of prenatal and perinatal trauma. Active members spanning the globe include: obstetricians, pediatricians, family practice physicians, nurses, midwives, health care professionals, developmental therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, counselors, doulas, childbirth educators, home visitors, chiropractors, cranial-sacral, osteopathic, and naturopathic practitioners, and somatic therapists. Other members include community leaders, businesspersons, educators, researchers, and policy makers.

A significant portion of current APPPAH members are therapists playing a historic role in identifying and healing the psychological traumas of modern birth; they are also authorities on how to prevent these traumas. APPPAH spreads the message that positive prenatal and perinatal experiences have a lasting influence on health, human relationships, and society